"While climate change is a legitimate threat, prioritizing climate change was driven largely by (relative) political convenience and the constant jockeying for agency funding, NGO membership dues, and foundation grants. Meanwhile the failure to prioritize economic growth, the mother of 21st-century threats, is driven by shallow political thinking and the personal interests of "leaders" getting paid the big bucks at the heads of government agencies and environmental NGOs."

Climate change is really just an ambiguous term or understatement for the problem at the root of our energy production and consumption, which is growth in energy use, economic/population expansion, and environmental degradation resulting in overshoot that is vulnerable to collapse.

Interesting reflections on how all the energy spent on dealing with climate change distracts us from the real root cause of our "great disruption".

Many of the growth strategies tried around the world have turned out to have built-in limitations or decelerators – what one might call elements of unsustainability.

Absolute must-read article in Project Syndicate by 2001 Economics Nobel laureate Michael Spence. He seems to be one of the few economists able to think beyond the unfruitful austerity versus growth debate and link the crisis of the economy and economics with the sustainability crisis.

"The growth paradigm, as I use the term, refers to the proposition that economic growth is good, imperative, essentially limitless, and the principal remedy for a litany of social problems. The growth paradigm appears ubiquitous, even natural, but it is uniquely modern."

Brilliant historical analysis of the paradigm of eternal, limitless growth By Gareth Dale. Very relevant for current thinking on the need for new one-planet economy.

The Tokyo-based Institute for Studies in Happiness, Economy, and Society (ISHES) recently released a new interesting report, "Life Beyond Growth", which summarises the search for new economic thinking beyond GDP.

Some 85 percent of companies have more complex supply chains as a result of globalization, and adjusted climate forecasts mean businesses should expect climate change to have an even more destructive effect than previously assumed on supply ...

Two new remarkable reports by PricewaterhouseCoopers paint a scary 6-degrees climate future and economic turmoil for global business. High time one of the big consultancies goes beyond the usual "let's keep it positive" approach and starts talking reality.

Economic impact of global warming is costing the world more than $1.2 trillion a year, wiping 1.6% annually from global GDP...

By 2030, the researchers estimate, the cost of climate change and air pollution combined will rise to 3.2% of global GDP, with the world's least developed countries forecast to bear the brunt, suffering losses of up to 11% of their GDP.

Drawing from previous degrowth conferences in Paris and Barcelona in 2008 and 2010 respectively, the Montreal conference will focus on the particular situations and dynamics of the Americas. What does degrowth mean for our Hemisphere with its rich geographical, cultural, social and economic diversity? How can degrowth models apply to different contexts from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego? What does degrowth mean for the indigenous peoples of the Americas and their aspirations for their lands and peoples? How can degrowth concepts be made audible, understandable and acceptable to rich North Americans?

This conference held in Canada from 13-19 May will probably be much more relevant for the future than the upcoming Rio+20 summit.

Overdeveloped countries, including the United States, need to adopt a strategy of economic "degrowth" to limit ecological collapse and severe climate shifts. This does not mean stagnating economic development; it means cutting down on waste and overcoming the social pressure to accumulate material wealth at the expense of others' well-being.

Short summary of the Worldwatch Institute's State of the World 2012: Moving towards Sustainable Prosperity".

"Is the end of growth the end of markets? The end of capitalism? Most definitely not. We will still need competition, we will still want ideas and innovation to flourish and we will want capital allocated as efficiently as possible. Markets are good at all those things."

New article by Paul Gilding ("The Great Disruption") which shows that post-oil and post-growth thinking is still struggling big time with the question of the balance between "state" and "market". Phrases like: we need to accept the earth's limits "as absolute boundaries of the market system" are unhelpful. We need much more sophisticated blueprints of how a just society could produce and consume within ecological and energy limits.

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